How was Charles Sturt's expedition so important to the colony?

Answer 1

Captain Charles Sturt made several expeditions that were significant for what they did for Australia and the colony of New South Wales.

After he came to Australia in 1827, Sturt aimed to solve the mystery of where the inland rivers of New South Wales flowed. The rivers appeared to flow towards the centre of the continent, so it was believed that they emptied into an inland sea. Sturt first followed the Macquarie River as far as the Darling, which he named after Governor Darling. Finding new waterways was always valuable for opening up new pastureland and grazing land.

Pleased with what Sturt had discovered, Governor Darling sponsored Sturt's expedition to trace the course of the Murrumbidgee River, and to see whether it joined to the Darling. This was in 1829-1830. On this expedition, Sturt discovered that the Murrumbidgee River flowed into the Murray (which Huma and Hovell had named the Hume), as did the Darling. Sturt was able to follow the Murray River in a collapsible whaleboat, and he found that it flowed to the southern ocean, emptying out at Lake Alexandrina on the southern coast. The expedition was significant as it opened up Australia's inland waterways to the transportation of people and goods. It also opened up the southern coast as a definite possibility for establishing a new colony, something which Matthew Flinders had suggested 25 years earlier. As a direct result of Sturt's discoveries, the colony of South Australia was founded within less than a decade.